How to ride more than one bike at a time

When people find out how many bikes I have, they often say “but you can only ride one bike at a time”. Actually this is not true. I’ve often seen people carefully steering one bike alongside the one they are riding.

Every once in a while, I find myself in a situation where it is convenient to tow a bike off the end of my xtracycle. The easiest way is to just put the front wheel into one side of the freeloader bag.

However, this approach isn’t the most stable.

There are many people who have made tow hitches. An article on this is here.

My version of the tow hitch is cheaper and more robust. All you need is some angle iron, two U bolts, and a bike fork mount. You should be able to figure it out from the back and top views:

This is what an adult bike under tow looks like:

A couple words of advice:

Firstly, this setup is obviously never intended to tow a bike with a rider. Secondly, take care to round off the edges of the angle iron so that kids running around the back of the bike won’t scrape their shins. Finally, if you aren’t going to use it for a while, either stow the QR skewer, or thread the nut in a fair amount. I’ve lost a QR from it vibrating loose.

The most fun application is to have my kids on the back, with one bike stowed, and the other towed, until we reach the lakefront, where it is safer for them to ride.

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4 Responses

Great article & pics Jun. I thought I had every type of bike for every purpose in my garage but now I realize I need a tow-truck bike 😉

There’s a name I’ve heard people use for riding a 2nd bike off to the side; “ghost riding” a bike. I worked on Mackinac Island for a summer for one of those bike rental companies and we’d have to ghost ride bikes back to the shop w/ flat tires quite often, so I got pretty good at it. Try riding a bike like that with a flat tire for 4 miles! You’ll develop some strong wrists.

Hi there,
My nine year old daughter will be going on a bike ride with me on her bike, but it’ll be a distance she’s not used to riding. If she gets too fatigued, we’d like an option for us to be able to tow her bike while she sits on my Xtracycle.

I’m considering constructing the same towing equipment that you’ve made. It looks like it’ll fit the bill.

Since it’s been about six months since you wrote your article, can give us any suggestions or updates on your ‘tow-biking’ set-up?